Australian Visitors Must Declare Illegal Porn To Customs Officers 361
Australian Justice Minister Brendan O'Connor has advised visitors to take a better safe than sorry policy when it comes to their porn stashes, and declare all porn that they think might be illegal with customs officers. From the article: "The government said it changed the wording on passenger arrival cards after becoming aware of confusion among travellers about what pornography to declare. 'People have a right to privacy and while some pornography is legal and does not need to be disclosed, all travellers should be aware that certain types of pornography are illegal and must be declared to customs,' Mr O'Connor said."
Re:Expectation of privacy (Score:2, Insightful)
"This file seems to be encrypted. I suspect you want to hide something illegal there. Please give me the password, otherwise I cannot let you pass."
Re:ok, i'll be dumb enough to ask (Score:5, Insightful)
who travels with porn?
Customs officers that collect images from their backscatter X-ray machines
Re:Yes office, (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what. I personally think it does say a lot by our society that it's acceptable to slaughter adolescent animals simply because we think they taste well, but if you let one of them lick your naked body it's somehow animal abuse even if the creature in question suffers no ill effects.
Damn will my karma burn for saying this, but while people like to pretend zoophilia is bad because it hurts animals, the real reason it's considered unacceptable is because we have freaking problem with sex. Food does not cause the same reaction, and thus few people care that we are raising animals with the intent to kill and eat them.
Similar complete failure of logic is seen in the anti stem-cells crowd, many of which will happily eat eggs, bacon or chicken, while at the same time declaring IVF and embryonic stem cell research as unacceptable attacks on the sanctity of life.
Now go on, try to justify it. All the usual arguments basically boil down to "it's ok to kill animals because they taste nice", which does make it seem rather hollow when the same people condem zoophilia.
As it happens, I'm not actually a zoophiliac. Merely a vegan who finds it a bit twisted that we seem to consider it worse to let an animal have sex with you than it would be to kill it.
Re:ok, i'll be dumb enough to ask (Score:3, Insightful)
Who among us (people on /. that is) does not IMMEDIATELY search for all images when someone we know asks us to repair their computer?
Especially if that someone is a reasonably attractive female.
Oh, I've had some amazing discoveries there.
And you learn a lot about people by the type of porn they keep.
Re:ok, i'll be dumb enough to ask (Score:5, Insightful)
Hint to all those married or thinking about it: if your significant other can't come to grips with the fact that one other person cannot embody the totality of somebody's sexuality, you have settled and in the process are doomed to denying part(s) of your true self for the duration of your relationship. I love my wife as deeply as I do in no small part because she doesn't use "morality" as a cover to be an irrational, paranoid, hyper-jealous ass like so many people do.
Re:Yes office, (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Yes office, (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn will my karma burn for saying this, but while people like to pretend zoophilia is bad because it hurts animals, the real reason it's considered unacceptable is because we have freaking problem with sex.
We don't let adults have sex with minors.
All the same reasons apply to sex with animals.
It's not so much about harm as it is about consent.
Re:Yes office, (Score:1, Insightful)
Uhh what kind of idiot are you? Have all the animals in line at the slaughter house given consent to be killed? Do you have trouble distinguishing the difference between humans and animals? :rolleyes:
Re:Yes office, (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why is it ok to kill and eat them? Are you saying they can consent to having their lives ended in adolescence? Can a hen consent to living its life on an area less than that of an A4 paper ?
It's hypocrisy no matter how you try and twist and turn it.
Re:ok, i'll be dumb enough to ask (Score:1, Insightful)
I do the opposite. I was recently helping a friend recover some misplaced files and the easiest way to do it was by searching for all files modified with a certain range of dates/times -- that can be a lot of files, including browser temporary files and all sorts of things. I specifically asked them if there was "any file pattern we should make sure is excluded in the search filter" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). It saves everyone a lot of grief.
Re:ok, i'll be dumb enough to ask (Score:5, Insightful)
Those of us who respect the privacy of our friends/acquaintances?
Seriously, what kind of asshole are you that you'd dig through someone's personal files without asking their consent?
Hell, I may be *curious* about what images/vids they have... but to actually go through with it and snoop on them? What a dick you must be.
Re:If you have not notice by now... (Score:3, Insightful)
European dark age churches have taken over the state (government).
Re:That's Australia for you. (Score:1, Insightful)
Better than being founded by slavers, murderers and warmongers.
Re:Yes office, (Score:5, Insightful)
As it happens, I'm not actually a zoophiliac. Merely a vegan who finds it a bit twisted that we seem to consider it worse to let an animal have sex with you than it would be to kill it.
No, you are pretty much correct. I'm no vegan (far from it) but I think you are spot on correct. The whole concept is just our fear of anything relating to sex.
Think of it this way:
Carefully touch a bull's testicles and derive some pleasure from it: People will flip out at what a horrible crime it is.
Take a sharp knife, slice open the scrotum, remove the testicles, bread them and saute them and call them rocky mountain oysters and eat them. People will give you money for them.
Re:Yes office, (Score:3, Insightful)
Because they're animals. You can kill them, but you aren't allowed to torture them.
Well, in the context of what we are discussing: We are allowed to have dogs chase them down tear them up in an already unfair fight before we come in and shoot them until they are too wounded to keep running from us, then knife them to death, video tape the whole thing including the after death humiliation of skinning and impromptu sports games with non-tasty body parts. It's fine to show these videos to your kids, actually your kids were probably there to see daddy being a man. However, if these animals were to enjoy some peanut butter off your nuts, not ok: torture.
Re:Yes office, (Score:2, Insightful)
The reason we don't allow humans to have sex with animals is that they lack capacity. It's the same reason we don't allow adults to have sex with children. There would be no meeting of the minds. It still wouldn't matter if they allegedly were unharmed, they don't have the capacity and the other party can't make that decision for them.
This also explains why you can't have sex with people when they're unconscious, no matter how careful or safely you do that, or how unharmed they are from the event. They did not consent, as they are in a state of diminished capacity.
As to the argument of weather or not it's wrong to eat animals, it's a different argument altogether.
I don't however think that anyone is arguing that animals are consenting or unharmed by eating. Nevertheless, I'm still going to eat animals, and I don't mean that way.
Re:ok, i'll be dumb enough to ask (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes office, (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't think of any reason to outlaw porn. Period.
The reason I make the exception for child rape, is for the same reason I don't think children should be able to drive. Or join the army. Or vote. They have not reached maturity yet to give their "consent" for these things.
Re:Yes office, (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not so much about harm as it is about consent.
How does an animal about to be slaughtered for food give consent?